Platypus and echidna babies are considered to be the cutest... and some say the ugliest! You can make up your mind here, after seeing this wonderful series of images (by an exclusive permission of Australian photographer Den Whitton).

Den thinks "it's unfair that the platypus gets all the fame when the echidna is just as weird, and even less understood. Spread the echidna love!"

Baby echidna is called a "puggle" (puggle-licious!). Echidnas and the Platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, so all this cuteness (ugliness) actually hatched out of an egg: imagine this cute snout poking out of the shell...

Echidnas (or "spiny anteaters") are toothless - they break open the termite nests and ants get stuck to their long sticky tongues. Just like porcupines and hedgehogs they curl into a ball when disturbed or frightened. Their eggs are incubated in a pouch, and the mother carries the baby until it starts to grow spines. Here's an orphaned 30 days old echidna, without fur and spines yet:

Platypus is so weird looking, that it was considered a fraud when first discovered (somebody must've stuck a duck bill to a beaver's body). A crazy concoction of bird parts (the bill), reptile internal organs, that is actually a mammal, swimming underwater for 10 minutes at a time.

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Actually, the baby platypi are called puggles - it's the term for monotreme babies, not just echidnas. :) These guys are great, you've got to be careful with their delicate skin, but they really love to be held!